Introduction

Environment is a product of memory. Although not immediately apparent to us, the world we experience is interpreted through the lens of past experience. As we move through the landscape of our lives, everything we encounter in stored by the brain and used to impose order on the "booming, buzzing confusion" of the here and now. Our experience of 'here' is the sum of its unique sensory properties and the memory of every other location we have ever visited. Other places are always with us.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this process is that it typically operates below the level of conscious experience, virtually invisible to our everyday existence. Experimental studies have begun to tease apart this subtle mechanism, illuminating the faint traces of the brain's operation in greater detail.

Nevertheless, human existence is rarely predictable and occasionally these faint traces erupt into fantastical experiences where 'here' becomes a kaleidoscopic blend of the past and present. When experiencing psychosis, the reality-bending mental state involving unusual experiences and delusional beliefs, a person perceives their environment in radically different ways.

Familiar places can seem sinister, imbued with deep significance or adorned with hallucinatory creations. In one particular form of delusion, known as reduplicative paramnesia, a person believes that a single location exists in two or more places simultaneously, suggesting that fragmented memories of place are turned into a concrete perception of reality.

The study of psychosis is providing a window into how the mind and brain operate, both when in the midst of alternate realities, and when perceiving the more mundane and regular forms of everyday life. One recent scientific finding is that psychosis is not a distinct mental state, but simply one end of a spectrum of unusual beliefs and experiences that are distributed throughout the population.

'Walking Here and There' aims to explore how memories of past locations influence the experience of the present both by using experimental demonstrations with human volunteers and by locating the experiences of those who have experienced psychosis into the physical sites in which they occurred.

The project also asks questions about the difference between delusion, psychosis and supposedly 'normal' mental states, and how they relate to our own memories of location and place. By highlighting the universal influence of memory on our experience of the world, we hope to better understand its normal function, and to emphasise the common experience of the 'mad' and the 'sane'. Where is the line between delusion and reality when we only have our memories to rely on?

Project stages

Solo-exhibition: Simon Pope at Chapter, Cardiff

Simon Pope's first solo-exhibition in the UK. The exploration is taken into another environment: that of the gallery space. interactions between gallery spaces; interactions between the memory of movement in one space on movement through another; bringing together a cohort of gallery owners, curators, exhibition officers, administrators, critics, artists and gallery visitors. A publication will include documentation and texts derived from earlier phases of the project, with contributions from Vaughan Bell, among others.

Memory's influence on experience of place: An experimental approach

Using methods of experimental psychology, the first stage aims to answer the question 'how much does the memory of past location influence the experience of the present'? The experiment aims not only to answer this question empirically, but also to pose questions about the role of memory in the experience of psychosis and hospitalisation, by juxtaposing the freedom of natural surroundings in the encoding condition, with the enclosed space of the recall condition (a psychiatric hospital corridor).

The recall and remembering technique to be used in this experiment is derived from Simon Pope's own experiments during the development of his artworks, and the psychological approach from Vaughan Bell's work as a research psychologist.

Locating psychosis: A guided tour of psychotic London

Informed by the outcome of the experimental stage, this stage will allow walkers to experience London through the memories of people who have experienced psychosis. Here, individual psychotic experiences will be located in specific spaces in which the walker can experience via a guided audio tour. Here, the experience of psychosis is available to the pedestrian, and personal knowledge of the state is highlighted as valued educational material.